Friday, 17 April 2009

No Bikehut? No problem

Readers who've been with me for a while may remember the whole Bikehut fiasco back in 2007 where they were due to open a store in the old M&S store by the Huntsmans Midas Touch and got as far as advertising for staff, only to pull the plug on the whole idea. Yes?

Well, it turns out it wouldn't have made much difference anyway as all of the Bikehut stores are either being closed or 'rebranded' as Halfords, their parent company. With a big Halfords in New Malden it's pretty certain a Worcester Park one would have got the chop. The Times reports on the whole thing, including some spectacular management-speak:

Halfords has scrapped its chain of standalone cycle stores just two years after launching the shops. The start-up formats — trading as Bike Hut and Cycle Republic — will either be rebranded as Halfords or closed at a cost of £1.2 million.

Prepare yourself for some euphemistic corporate-cobblers:

Halfords said the pilot chains “have been impacted by the increasing success of our superstores in the premium market segment and the migration of sales to the web, particularly for accessories. Consequently, we no longer believe that the stand-alone concept will deliver the absolute levels of financial return demanded for Halfords investments”.